Running on empty
by ChestOfStories
Summary: After suffering almost a week of painful nightmares, Bonnie decides to return to 1903 prison world and kill Kai to ensure her safety and get rid of the terrifying dreams. However, her mission takes an unplanned turn. / AU after the s06ep17 - (written by @KaiJest)


Bonnie lay awake in her bed, panting softly, as her heart was jumping up and down and sideways in her chest like a trapped rat that went rabid. Her eyes kept returning to the door – it was ajar, and she feared, more with each passing second, that someone would slip through from the dark of the dorm's corridor. She knew exactly who would, and it only made her horror deeper.

Her fingers were starting to hurt from the white-knuckled grip she had on her duvet she unconsciously clutched to her chest just beneath the chin, like a scared child, and she let go a little, releasing a long, shaky breath. The longer she lay, the more anxiety would grow – she knew, though couldn't tell why. Slowly, as if any one of her movements could cause an explosion, she slipped out of bed and shuddered at how cold the floor was beneath her bare feet. She started stealing towards the door, her heart thrashing so loud she thought half the Whitmore's dorm could hear it. A small whoosh of wind brushed against her cheek and shifted a few stands of her hair, making her freeze in her tracks, her eyes widening in sudden recognition.

"Hello, Bonnie," a soft, pleasant voice greeted from behind, so near Bonnie could hear the woman's breath. "So nice to see you again, my dear."

She spun around, her mouth opening for a scream that wouldn't come. Lily Salvatore smiled at her, as gently as a mother would, and the next second her beautiful smile distorted into a toothy snarl of a monster directly from the darkest novel of Anne Rice, and she lunged. Bonnie ducked out from under the woman's arm, dashing for the bedside table, grabbed the pen that lay there and twirled back just in time to see Lily's fangs going for her neck. Bonnie cried out in reflexive fright and stabbed the pen in Lily's face.

Lily let out a strangled howl, clutching at her eye, the pen sticking from between her fingers, blood trickling down.

Bonnie ran for the door and out. The corridor was long and dark. She tried to scream for help, knowing there was none to expect, but no sound came.

 _It's a dream. I'm dreaming. I should wake up. Wake up!_

She thought she heard Lily behind her and couldn't help but look, and then her body bumped full-force into something. Bonnie's head snapped back to register the new threat, and icy terror filled her from head to toe.

"Wow, you're really bad at running," Kai Parker commented and cracked a cheeky smile.

Horror reached its bony fingers so deep into Bonnie's soul that anger suddenly pushed forth as well as her hand. "Motus!" she gasped.

Still smiling, Kai glanced down at her hand – fingers clawed upward as if she was trying to grab a handful of something hanging in front of her – then back at her. "Oops, no magic. Must be my fault. I was spooning you earlier, and I could've sleep-siphoned you."

As her terror expanded, so did the anger, twisting her features into a mask of wild fury. "How dare y—"

Kai's expression shifted instantly from merriment to wrath. "What, you thought you could continue screwing people over and there'd be no consequences?" he demanded in a raised voice. His eyes darted to something over Bonnie's shoulder, and Bonnie's anger fled, leaving only screaming panic behind.

Lily gave her a hideous smile, half of her face was bloody. "Time to pay," she said, dark veins of hunger snaking under her eyes as her bared fangs elongated.

Kai's fingers dug in Bonnie's shoulders, spilling wrenching pain and holding her in place for Lily's advantage. Then the vampire's teeth sank in her neck. She wheezed… and jerked as a white flash blinded her, taking the pain away.

"Wake up, sleepyhead. You were moaning. Who was doing naughty things to you?"

Bonnie blinked, disoriented, and registered Elena's sprightly grin hovering over her. She swallowed, something clicking in her dry throat, and made herself smile back, reluctantly pushing the covers away. "I… don't remember."

"Yeah, sure," Elena chuckled, strolling away to the mirror. "I gotta run quick – can't be late for the fifth time this week, Ric will kill me." She put her second earring on and gave Bonnie a parting smile. "I'll see you in the cafeteria in two hours?" Bonnie nodded, and she left satisfied.

So cheerful, Bonnie thought bitterly and immediately chided herself. She had no right to be bitter with Elena – not after all her best friend had been through in the recent years, or just this year alone. But Bonnie still felt that nasty aftertaste in the bottom of her soul when she brushed her teeth, fighting off the persistent images from her nightmare. The nightmare that repeated itself every night for five days – sometimes more than once. She was waking up in tears, wheezing as her body writhed in pain. The pain stopped when she woke, but the feeling of it – the memory of it – was still vibrant in every cell.

It was supposed to be a blessing.

A solution to not just her problems, but Jo's, and Liv's, and for the rest of them.

It was supposed to be a relief.

Instead, it became a torture.

She rinsed her mouth and inspected the dark circles around her eyes in the mirror, then sighed and started applying the concealer.

Once she set a foot out the door, exhaustion seeped in, all at once, just like all the days before. Bonnie made herself keep going, but her stroll was losing the perk. There was no sense in any of it. How could she go to the lectures, sit and listen and take notes while she knew that things would never be normal for her? That she would come back to her room this evening, wouldn't be able to focus enough to study, and no good sleep would come? Only Lily and Kai, the eternal Lily and Kai with their endless torture. She was never going to break this circle. She was only going to sink deeper and deeper until there was no light above her head and no bottom beneath her feet. Only darkness around. She remembered something like that from the days she practiced Expression. She didn't want to go back to that feeling – God no, she did not. But it was exactly where she was rolling right now like a driverless car left on a hill's slope with unlocked parking brake.

She made herself go to the lectures. She sat, looked, listened, took notes. She barely heard. She had other things to mull over. There was an idea she turned this way and that in her mind. A crazy idea, indeed. But the only one she could think of. The solid idea. The very final idea. The one to end her suffering once and for all. /

Cold air stung Kai's skin as he staggered out of the house onto the porch and sucked in a deep breath. A white cloud of smoke wavered in front of his face as he exhaled. He took his hand off the side of his neck he was pressing it to and looked at his bloody fingers. The cold of the breeze eased the pain of the bite a little, but it still nagged deep in his flesh like a bruise someone kept kneading sadistically. Kai looked at the trees with caps of snow weighing their branches down, at the blinding white everywhere covering the ground like a cerement, and felt sick to his stomach, so sick he wanted to fall on his knees and scream until he grew both deaf and numb. Oh how he wished to grow numb and feel nothing. No pain, nor utter, shrieking despair that he sensed was slowly reversing him back to half-mad set of mind he fell into in his own prison world – the feeling he dreaded.

He wished she paid for this. But then, sometimes, he had no strength for wishing that and just wanted to die and get it over with. And now, it wasn't the first time he wondered why he didn't let Bonnie stab him to death when she meant to. Often he kept wishing he did, to the point it was starting to seem possible to go back in time and let exactly that happen instead of this mad, mad nightmare he was stuck in. At other times, he wondered if he would trade this for the former prison of nineteen-ninety-four, but then again, he didn't know. As though this hypothetical choice required too much energy he simply didn't have. Those bloodsuckers were taking it all. He seemed to himself a mere shadow of what he was starting to feel like when he was freshly free.

They weren't completely useless, he reckoned, nor too vicious towards him once the certain family resemblance had been established. But they were shocking images of what he wouldn't want to become. Every bite they inflicted sent a jolt of horror through him along with gnawing pain. What if he'd turn? What if he had to be like them, like those walking dead, ever silent and void of any human-like traits he missed greatly. Having tasted the real world, he craved for what was there, what was real. This place, especially with all the snow that made it look like some kind of a limbo for retired nightmares, felt anything but real. It called to his darkest, most depressing thoughts and moods and trapped him in them hour by hour. Even with a faint hope of getting out of here in case Lily held her end of the bargain – which these Heretics seemed certain of – he still wanted to die, in some moments more than in others. The endless circle of hopelessness and betrayals wore him out – the eternal winter of this prison emphasized it better than anything else could.

Snow crunched and whispered under his boots as he slowly walked among the trees away from the house. A part of him was apprehensive with the thought that one of them could be around, observing in dead silence as they all so loved to do, but mostly he didn't have it in him to care about that or anything else at this point. He briefly bent down, grasping a handful of snow, and put it to the aching bite on the left side of his neck, wincing as the cold stung the skin. He kept walking for a bit with no particular goal, just for the sake of walking, then stopped and considered sitting down and just being here in silence under the falling snow for a while, until it grew dark. Twilight had already begun seeping in; it would be night soon. He imagined lying on his back in the snow and letting it fall on his face, kissing it with cold here and there, and liked it. Not that the freaks would let him die like that, but the idea was certainly alluring. He could at least get a head start while he was out here alone…

Only, he wasn't.

He perked up and looked around, suddenly acutely aware of being watched. And, oddly enough, it wasn't the same feeling he got whenever he suspected the heretics loomed in the vicinity to keep an eye on their new investment. An excruciating throe exploded in his brain abruptly, stealing his breath and sight as he squeezed his eyes shut, gasping and clutching at his head. On instinct and panic, he shot a hand forth with a telekinesis spell, and hit it. The pain abated, and he saw a figure scrambling to their feet a dozen feet away. He knew her at once. A turmoil of emotions caught him in its midst, swirling and changing from bafflement to amazement and hope and finally anger.

She came here to finish the job.

Because all she had already done to him wasn't enough for the damned bitch.

Bonnie stood across from him, like a western hero ready to shoot the bad guy on the town's square while the citizens watched; white puffs of smoke veiling her mouth at each rapid exhale, snow settling on her dark hair like slow falling confetti. She was glowering.

Kai's anger surged up, hit the top red mark with the bright red light flashing over it, then fell right down like a stone. He couldn't fight her. The Motus spell he threw at her in panicked self-defense was about as much as he could muster in half-an-hour. All he wanted was to lie down by now, and only the power of will and remaining ire kept him standing.

Bonnie was grinning. It looked more like a snarl of a mad woman, either crazily triumphant or simply crazy. Kai, however, recognized it for what it was: an armor against the maddening fear she still harbored for him. Fear and hatred so strong they could move the world. And would certainly move his heart from his chest within a blink of an eye if she wished so.

He smirked darkly, scanning her with a keen stare. "Took some guts coming here, Bon, I give you that." He spread his arms, his eyebrows raising, "So, what's it gonna be? An aneurism? Or, like my beloved family, you fancy making me suffer longer? I'm afraid, though, you won't have much time to enjoy that – we might have company any moment, so I suggest you hurry the fuck up and do what you came here for."

Her grin creased into a grimace of seething hate. "Shut up!" He was right, though, she needed to hurry. She had to kill him now and make sure he was really dead this time. She was taking no chances. No more chances. Only the certainty, as solid as the steel of the knife she was pulling from the back of her waistband.

His eyes darted to it as she did, his sneer grew wicked. "Ah, poetic. Like y'all Bennetts are, I guess. All right. Come and get it." His smile slipped off so quick as if it were a half-mask he was holding to his mouth and then dropped. "Go ahead, brave witchy gal. This should be easy enough since you're so powerful and righteous in your rage now." He spread his arms again, beckoning her to approach. "Kill the monster, save the world – is that how it goes? Of course it is, hero Bennett. It'll be a thick check mark on your do-gooder's achievements list, if not for the whole damn coven of mine dying with me. Jo, Liv, my wonder-dad… But who cares – you're saving the world, right? So come on, do it. Do it. DO IT!"

Hurt and fury were crushing Bonnie's chest in their iron vice, closing it with every word leaving the bastard's mouth. Her free hand hurt, balled in a tight fist, the other's palm ached from squeezing the knife's handle. As his voice peaked, she shot out her hand that didn't have the blade in it and pushed the spell through gritted teeth.

Kai cried out and fell on his knees, snow splashing sideways as he did, clutching his temples. She flicked her hand, and a trickle of dark blood crept from his nose, spilled over his upper lip.

She was killing him. It was real.

This was reality and she was winning.

And then all the names and facts he had mentioned ran through her head, splashing a bucket of cold water over the flames of fury she was nursing. Her hand fell to her side limply, as well as Kai slumped down on his side, barely breathing. Bonnie felt a moment of utter emptiness, a dark void she feared so much, and then it sucked and ached, her eyes welled up. A sob, more like a bark, broke through, as she felt her chest flood with burning hurt. She uttered a cry of an animal that lunged in its last attack to die fighting, and hurled the knife at Kai. It stuck a few inches short of his shoulder.

He paid no mind, half-awake.

"Yes, I'm a do-gooder!" she screamed at him, making a few angry steps towards his sprawled form. "I always try my best to do good, to be good! To always make the right choices for the sake of those I love and myself! I always try my best to protect my loved ones and make sure they're safe and happy! I sacrifice everything to make sure they're okay and alive and… and happy! And what do I get?! I… I get stabbed, bitten, killed or… or become some kind of a gateway for all those evil monsters I was supposed to fight against. I do everything, EVERYTHING, to save my family and friends, and… and they still die. My dad is dead! My grams—" A harsh sob broke through, making her stagger, and she fell on her haunches and wept.

Kai had managed to haul himself into a sitting position and was watching her with a mix of bewilderment, pained sympathy and fascination.

"I… I…" she tried to contain her sobs, doing a poor job of it, and looked up at him with both deepest misery and accusation in her gaze. "I did everything I could to shield all those I love from pain and danger. I failed at some, but I tried. I tried every time, and what? What now? Now you say I'm _no better than you_?" Her sobs eased as she stared at him, searching his face intently.

He gave a humorless laugh and shook his head, peered at her bitterly. "Good and bad, fine lines… or thick – I've never actually given it much thought, because I didn't care to. Black and white are such extremes that no one can be either of them. It's all about the shades in between." He paused for a moment, his eyes holding hers, then leaned in a little as if to confide. "I never cared if you were good or bad, Bonnie. When I saw you, I only cared that you WERE. And that's it. It was good enough for me. All I ever wanted was for you to SEE me. The real me I wanted only you to see. I don't know why it was so damn important – and it pissed me off, believe me, because there's nothing more exhausting than to be drawn to someone who hates your guts. I did my best to make you understand me, but all you saw was the label you'd pinned on me and weren't gonna change. You were content to have me written down as a monster, and it's all right to betray such, right? He's evil, he can't feel, so why not lock him up in the same damn cell – he deserves it. He had it coming. Maybe I do deserve it – I don't even know anymore, nor care to know. I'm just… tired. Tired of this constant chase after what I can't quite get, tired of fearing the next eternity of hell I barely endured before. I'm tired of living if it's all I get." He scooped a handful of snow and wiped it over his face in hopes to clear his heavy, pounding head. Then he looked back to her wearily. "As much as I'd like for you to kill me and end this crappy line of crappy days that seem to be all my life, you can't do it here. This world will collapse if I'm dead, taking you with. At least I think it will. So just… go away. I'll do it myself." He produced a box from his jacket's pocket and dropped it in front of her knees.

The ascendant.

"Take it and go away," he repeated and started to get up.

She watched, feeling unwittingly pained by how slow and torment-filled his movements were. She hated herself for the guilt he planted in her with his confession that struck her dumbfounded and somehow vulnerable. Even more than she ever felt in the nightmares about him. It was another kind of vulnerable, though – a softer, melancholic kind. He did change, after all, she thought with genuine wonder, peering up at him as he found his feet and made to leave. "Wait," she said and picked herself and the ascendant up.

He looked at her with a tired expectancy.

"Wait," she repeated, uncertain of what she was going to say or do, unwilling to process it in her mind with clarity. It was something the good old Bonnie Bennett wouldn't consider, but this Bonnie couldn't quite dismiss. "Go back with me," she uttered and grew cold inside at her own words. There was also some kind of a weird excitement underneath the layer of dread and dizziness – like there was some nice small surprise waiting for her if she was willing to dig deeper. Right now, she was out of stamina to do so.

He scowled with naked disbelief. "Why?"

Good question, she thought sardonically and shoved the thought away for later inspection. "Shut up and come before I change my mind." She grabbed him by the sleeve and tugged along, starting into the forest. /

Bonnie pushed the door open, pulled the key out and put it in Kai's hand before nudging him into the motel room. "Good enough for now, since I can't exactly bring you to Mystic Falls or my dorm bedroom."

He said nothing and seated himself on the bed, barely sparing her a glance. He was silent all the drive up here to the outskirts of Whitmore, and it made Bonnie unspeakably uneasy. She couldn't stop guessing whether he was plotting to avenge his sufferings or was just unwell, which could potentially mean trouble. How unwell? How crazy sort of unwell?

"Fine," she said with finality. "I should be going now."

Still nothing. Staring somewhere between his knees at the floor.

She sighed and went for the door. As her hand closed on the knob and the cold of it touched her skin, it hit her suddenly like a pile of bricks. Her inner loneliness screamed inside of her, and it occurred to her, just now, how it must be the same (or worse) for Kai. How she would go out now, and he wouldn't even look at her. She suddenly remembered the way he looked at her when she met with him in the diner, bringing Damon's idea to life. Not even Jeremy looked at her that way. Or was it that she simply never forgave him that flick with Anna? She could no longer tell, and that was terrifying – abruptly, surprisingly terrifying because she didn't care much anymore. Jeremy was gone, just like any other person she needed so badly to be there for her, with her, just around, close enough to reach out and get a response. Who did she have left now, after all the tribulations? Elena? Damon? She thought so, yes, she was sure, but then they were into each other so much there was no space around them for her to be. Not before they made it, and they not yet did so. Caroline? She had too many things to settle for herself these days, and barely showed face after the ripperish spree. Who else?

Her throat narrowed and worked, eyes welled up. She jerked her hand back from the knob as if it was red-hot, and turned to Kai.

He was unmoving as before.

"You liked me?" she asked.

He looked up, surprised. His face reflected a question.

"You liked me?" she asked again, emphasizing the insistence with her tone.

He frowned, unwilling to voice it, but the hurt on his face said it out loud.

She proceeded, "Why?"

Along with saturated surprise and bedazzlement, there was momentary flicker of fear of her wanting him to expose his already stirred wound for further poking. "What do you mean?"

She averted her eyes, briefly annoyed at him and herself, exhaling loudly as she paced back and forth, gathering her jumbled thoughts together. Then she stopped and set her eyes on him, tears brimming her lower lids. "I always thought I knew what I was like, or… what I wanted to be like. And I did my best to follow it, to be what grams brought me up to become. And with all that happened…" She shook her head confusedly. "I don't know… I kind of… lost myself. I don't know myself anymore… Do you know what it feels like? It's like I can't find my way around my own house where I grew up and knew every corner. It's… it's terrifying!"

He knew.

"What was it that you liked so much about me? Why did you keep seeking me out when I was back and wishing you dead? Why? Why bother with me at all when you had your freedom? What did you like in me?"

He gave a quiet laugh. It came out somewhat sad. "You were brave. Strong. Tough, even. I mean, you had a vampire with you and didn't care that he was a walking murder and mayhem. You could handle him. Moreover, you were willing to protect him, even knowing what a scum he was. Your loyalty and sense of honor dazed me, Bonnie. I wanted to know how you ticked, it became that idea I couldn't shake. _You_ became something I couldn't shake." He shrugged.

She thought about it, and laughed nervously, shaking her head. "Words. Just words… Brave…" She laughed harder with no humor in it, whatsoever. "Strong? Me? How? If I were strong, I'd… God, I don't know. It all means nothing. I want to _feel_ it! Feel something! _Anything_!"

He watched her helplessly.

She plopped down on the edge of the bed next to him and was displeased to notice he almost recoiled. "I want you to show me." She grasped his hands into hers before he could protest, her eyes locked on his, desperate and pleading, tears spilling and creeping down her cheeks. "I want to see me the way you did – I want you to show me myself through your eyes. I want to _feel_ it. Please. I know you're mad at me, and I… I guess I'm still mad at you, but… if you still want us to change the pattern, _show_ me."

Anxiety in his gaze slowly shifted to tired acceptance, and she took it as a yes.

She uttered the spell and closed her eyes and the magical effect caught their breaths.

Visions scrolled through their minds with crazy speeds, slowing down on certain moments and speeding up over next ones. They saw it all from the day Damon and Bonnie met Kai in the store to the moment she stabbed him in the back to make him pay for every bit of pain he caused her. It took barely a few minutes in the real time, but for them it was much longer, and much more eventful than a couple of minutes could be.

Bonnie broke away, breathing heavily, and in his stare she saw the same overwhelmed expression. It hit them both equally hard. She needed a few moments to let it settle a bit in her mind. She never even guessed… And her birthday in the 1994 prison world that almost became her last one - Kai was the one behind the message delivery. He almost died, too, that day... But no one told her... With the tornado of emotions still swirling rampant inside her, she lunged forward and kissed him.

He didn't really recoil this time, but was reluctant to reciprocate in the beginning. It went from insane to surreal in a matter of minutes, and he was so damn exhausted to begin with. He gave up on trying to find heads or tails in his racing thoughts that went blank the moment her lips claimed his. It was something he never expected from Bonnie Bennett, however stressed out.

She pulled away slightly for a breath and advanced on him slowly, her hands pushing his jacket off his shoulders.

He stared as if she sprouted wings and a horn in the middle of her forehead.

It amused and excited her, waking something deep down that she had never quite used before. She pushed the jacket off his arms and let it slip on the floor.

He started to ask, "Wha—"

She pressed a finger to his lips, her eyes turning stern for a moment. "It's my turn, and I want to show you something, too. Shut up and play along." She smiled and kissed him again, her fingers fumbling with his belt, enjoying his little shiver when her hand brushed against the growing bulge in his jeans.

This time he kissed her back.

She was able to let herself go and relished in it. She remembered clearly how she trembled under his stare every time after he'd shot her with an arrow. Now she relished in the way he trembled under her lips and hands; how his heart thumped so rapidly under her palm stroking over his chest, how he couldn't quite hold the groans of pleasure she brought. She reveled in how the high and mighty walls he'd built around himself started to crack and crumble, stone by stone; and how his own advancements grew more passionate and dominative. She delighted in their little ardent power struggle, in the fact that he still, no matter what, fancied her. And that now, after what he let her in on, she kind of fancied him, too.

* * *

 **A/N:** This particular story is a one-shot and will not be updated because it's finished.

However, we are planning on developing this idea into a full storyline a bit later once we have finished of the other running ones.

Thank you for reading and reviewing, it means a lot to us.


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